Blog Comments Help Search For A Killer

On Saturday night, a woman named Betty Wheeler was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver near a highway intersection in Waynesboro, Virginia. As the scene of the crime was investigated, one piece of evidence surfaced: a car part (an air dam) that broke off upon impact (the image above). This is when the community of commenters around the car culture blog Jalopnik took action, and may have just given the authorities some valuable information about the case.

First it was the Twitter community helping to save a carjacking victim in Johannesburg, now this. The blog posted a story, asking their commenters to try and identify what car the part came from. Almost immediately, the results became clear via the discussion, and a make, model and year were identified: a 2003 Ford F150 with XL Trim. Waynesboro Police Department have been notified and the discovery has been added to the evidence notes. Here's some of the comments that led to the Eureka moment:

Once again, it's brilliant to see the proactive nature of an online community, and also the fact that local law enforcement actively took note of this is another step towards crowdsourced policing. So, to the likes of Cheeseslap and BigBlockBearr, you deserve this for your discovery.

Murderer Uses 'Confession Bear' Meme To Admit Crime

A Reddit user uploaded an image on Quickmeme, saying “My sister had an abusive meth addict boyfriend/I killed him with his own drugs while he was unconscious and they ruled it as an overdose." Of course, as it is the internet (especially Reddit), these things have to be taken with a pinch of salt; but as the story unfolds it would be fair to assume that somebody has committed a murder and confessed to it via a meme.

Twitter Aids In Saving A Carjacking Victim

A man was saved from a carjacking in Johannesburg by his mobile phone and a tweet.

On Saturday evening, as he was driving through Honeydew in north-west Johannesburg, two armed men forced him into the boot of his car at gunpoint. At this point he sent a text to his girlfriend, who promptly took to Twitter to spread the word beyond contacting authorities, detailing the car and the time of hijack.

Teen Tweets, Rather Than Helps, Dying Man In Street

A teenager in Edinburgh, Scotland could face criminal charges after witnessing a man dying in the street and, without calling the police to report the incident, nor going over the help the man, tweeted a photo of the hit-and-run victim with the caption “Eeeehm wtf? Some guy just casually lying outside Ocean Terminal.”

Blogger charged $2.5 million for not being a journalist

We get used to threats of court action from companies too bitter to take an opinion; but this case has certainly sent a scary message out to us and the rest of the blogosphere. A U.S. District Court Judge has ordered a blogger to pay the sum of $2.5 million to an investment firm she was writing about, because in the eyes of the law she isn't a real journalist.